


time is overturned, and space turns askew

by eggboyksoo



Series: the legends (we are the future) [1]
Category: EXO (Band), NCT (Band), SHINee, SuperM (Korea Band), WayV (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Band, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Gen, MAMA Era Powers (EXO), Mentions of Johnny, Supernatural Elements, based on the jopping mv individual teasers and exo lore lmao, exo are guardians of the tree of life!, mentions of kyungsoo and other exo members, mentions of wayv ensemble, superm have powers!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 07:09:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21132698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggboyksoo/pseuds/eggboyksoo
Summary: "Taemin always chooses the weirdest places for them to meet up."-In which the Tree of Life speaks to Lee Taemin, a Guardian remains missing, and Mark wonders, not for the last time, why he's even here.





	time is overturned, and space turns askew

**Author's Note:**

> hi, hello... welcome to whatever this is. i watched the power mv for the first time in a while and was thinking about the superm teasers and missing kyungsoo and this was sort of.... born. i don't know if this will go anywhere after this, or if it'll remain a short piece, but here it is, in all of it's very quickly written glory! i hope you enjoy! :)
> 
> (and yes, the title comes from the iconic "when the skies and the grounds were one" speech from the start of the mama mv.... iconic)

Taemin always chooses the weirdest places for them to meet up.

This time, it’s in the middle of a desert, right as the last rays of sun fall over the area. He’d given them no directions, just a feeling. Mark’s gotten better at reading them now, but it’s still weird. He navigates through the desert around Dubai based on the tug of his gut that now links him to the others. The navigation system built into the luxury car he’s driving remains turned off.

_You’re almost here_, a cheerful voice croons in his head. Taemin’s.

And sure enough, within minutes, the tugging in his gut subsides, the link pulled taut as he takes in the gathering in front of him.

Most of them are already there—he sees Ten and Lucas leaning against a _tank_, of all things, casually chatting; Baekhyun paces between the tank and Taeyong’s parked car, a similar model to Mark’s, as Taeyong and Taemin watch him amusedly. They all look over when Mark pulls up. Lucas raises his hand in a friendly wave, completely out of sorts with the black get up he’s wearing that screams _I Am A Highly Trained Assassin!_

“Hey guys,” Mark says, with a wave of his own. “Everyone get here okay?”

Baekhyun glares at Taemin. “Do you know how expensive it is to book tickets to Dubai last minute?”

Mark knows that Baekhyun has a fortune stored in many offshore accounts and has had for years, but Mark says nothing. The tickets _were_ expensive, and Mark’s not blessed with teleportation or his own private jet like some people.

“I had a pleasant flight,” Ten says, eyes glinting in the fading daylight. “It was the walking that tired me out.”

Lucas shudders, and it’s only then does Mark realise that the former’s golden skin looks paler than usual. “Dude, you walked too?”

“Yeah.” Lucas’ face scrunches up.

“Ah, right—you’re from another dimension, yes?” Taemin asks.

“Yeah,” Lucas replies, with a smile. “It’s been a long time. But we hung out together, and I explained what I was up to… it was nice.” Lucas heads over to Mark, holding out his phone. There’s a picture of a group of boys with their arms around each other. Mark recognises some of them, with many of them having counterparts in his own world, but there are a few he doesn’t recognise. Lucas is right in the middle, beaming. Mark spots Winwin—or Lucas’ Winwin, Sicheng, _damn_, Mark misses his Winwin—but he’s surprised to see Ten in the photo too, his arm around someone who looks like he’s the eldest of the bunch. “Yeah, they sort of took in Ten, too. Kun-ge’s just hospitable.”

“I like the idea of Ten having a home in whatever dimension he travels to,” Taeyong says, with an easy grin. There’s a spare bed within their hideout—it hasn’t been used in years, but it’s still there with Ten’s name on it. Taeyong insisted on keeping it. “I’m happy for you, Lucas.”

“Where’s Jongin?” Taemin speaks up again, head tilted at Baekhyun.

Mark expects Baekhyun to shoot Taemin a sassy response, but their leader merely looks out towards the horizon in thought. “In Paris,” Baekhyun says. “He’s with Sehun. As soon as they’re done or he can get away, he’ll meet us here.”

Taeyong mouths the word Sehun a few times to himself, eyes wide. Of course Oh Sehun, a famous model and his Johnny hyung’s childhood friend, was also a Guardian, but Mark’s learning that he’d met more of them than he’d realised.

They don’t have to wait too long for the familiar _crack_ and the familiar crackle of time-and-space that signals Kai’s arrival. As soon as he lands on the sand, he pushes back his hair with one hand, his other arm outstretched to deliver hugs to them all. “I hope the trip wasn’t too unpleasant for you,” he says, before glancing over Taeyong’s head to stare at Taemin. “Dubai is a little out of the way, don’t you think?”

“I promise, it was important,” Taemin insists, ignoring how Baekhyun scoffs.

“You better have a good reason,” Baekhyun says, his arm crossed. “I was in South America, for God’s sake—”

“I had a dream,” Taemin says, cutting him off. “About… about the Heart. And it told me to come here.”

Baekhyun and Kai’s eyes widen in sync.

“That’s impossible,” Baekhyun says, looking uncharacteristically serious. He looks around—Dubai’s city skyline twinkles in the distance as night falls. Aside from the freeway that Mark hadn’t taken to get here, there’s nothing except sand. “We’re the only ones who can communicate with the Heart—and it’s not _here_, otherwise we’d see it—” Baekhyun’s gaze drops to the sand in front of him, and falls silent.

Kai jerks back like they burned him. “No,” he says. “We’ve been to Dubai plenty of times. If the Heart was here, Kyungsoo-hyung would have been able to pick up on it—”

“I don’t know,” Taemin sighs, and they all hear what Taemin doesn’t say. _Kyungsoo probably knows more than you think_. It’s a shame that they can’t ask him anything, since he’s been missing since before Taemin started getting his visions.

It was hard for Kai and Baekhyun to explain their whole life mission to strangers, hesitant as they were to protect the identities of the other Guardians. They were bonded now, but they all knew Baekhyun and Kai would kill the rest of their little supergroup if it meant protecting the Guardians in a heartbeat. It didn’t matter how much Baekhyun liked to make sure Lucas was eating well or if Kai bought Mark food every time they went on missions together.

The main thing Mark had taken away from those long, sad stories was that the Tree of Life only spoke to its Guardians, and its Heart was even more closely guarded.

(“One of us had telekinesis,” Baekhyun had said, eyes dull as he stared into the fire. “His name was Luhan. He was close to Minseok-hyung. He and Kyungsoo split the Tree. Once we hid the two parts—one in our world, one in the other dimension—Kris-hyung and Luhan-hyung, they took the Heart, promising to hide it. But they never came back, and we never heard it speak again.”)

“I thought…” Lucas looks around at them all, before he straightens his spine, eyebrows furrowed. “I thought Taemin-hyung wasn’t a Guardian.”

Taemin shrugs. “I thought the same thing.”

“Were you dreaming about the Heart, hyung?” Kai asks, looking at Baekhyun.

Baekhyun shakes his head. “No. You?”

Kai shakes his own head, before latching onto his arm. “Wait—if it wasn’t us, maybe you’re tapping into another Guardian. What if it’s Kyungsoo-hyung—?”

Taemin gently pries Kai’s hand off of his bicep. “I’m not great at this, Jongin,” he says, “But if it was Kyungsoo, I know I’d _know_.”

Ten walks forward then, rolling his shoulders back. “Okay,” he says, “It’s not Kyungsoo, and it’s not you two, either. Let’s say hypothetically, the Tree is talking to Taemin—why did he call us? We’re not Guardians. We’re just spies, the rest of us.”

This is true, too. Mark still doesn’t understand why he’s here yet; Mark’s just a regular sniper, part of Neo City’s Tactical Unit. Sure, he’s a good sniper, and he’s great at manipulating reflections, but he’s no Guardian. Taeyong’s been the head of Unit 127 for years now, so if they needed someone from the NCTU, Taeyong would’ve been sufficient.

Ten and Lucas—they make more sense. They aren’t in the NCTU now, but they were before, and Ten’s knife skills are legendary, and he always had a knack for hiding, although now they know it’s because he just hopped into different dimensions for a little while when he was in trouble. Lucas, despite his friendly demeanour, was an incredible assassin who had appeared out of nowhere, skills fostered with his cheerful old friends, Weishen V, who are known in their world for being contract killers despite being just as goofy as Lucas.

But still—weapons and disappearing without a trace are cool, but it’s not Guardian work. Mark didn’t know what the Tree of Life was until August. Why would the Heart want to speak to them, when it had nine living Guardians that had dedicated their lives to finding and protecting it?

“Do you know how far down the Heart is?” Taeyong asks.

Taemin closes his eyes, hand twitching as if he’s tapping into the earth, trying to measure it in his head. “Very far down. But it’s here, I can feel it. But it—it wanted me to gather you.”

Taeyong looks over at Ten, eyes calculating and matching grins on their faces. Within seconds, Mark’s reached his own conclusions. “The Heart needs us to find the one person who can it get from there,” Mark says, eyes wide.

Lucas gasps. “It’s a rescue mission.”

“Just not for the Heart,” Taeyong says. “Well. Not yet.”

“We’ve already tried looking for Kyungsoo-hyung,” Kai says, shaking his head. “No one knows where he is.”

Baekhyun bends down, touching the sand. “The Heart will,” he says. “And if it won’t talk to us—just letting you know, Heart, that it’s kind of rude you’ve chosen someone else to talk to—we’ve got Taemin.”

“This could be fun,” Ten says, kneeling in the sand, holding his hands out. “I’ve always wanted Doh Kyungsoo’s autograph.”

They form a circle. Mark holds Kai’s hand in one hand, noting the slight tremble, and Lucas’ freakishly large paw in the other. The wind gets more chilly with every moment that passes; Mark feels the hairs on the back of neck stand.

“Alright, Heart,” Baekhyun says. “You better tell Taemin _very clearly_ how we’re supposed to get to Kyungsoo.”

**Author's Note:**

> superm's powers if you're curious:
> 
> baekhyun: light  
taemin: telepathy (very recently developed and limited to the superm members)  
jongin: teleportation  
taeyong: self-replication  
ten: "a walker", dimensional awareness and travel  
lucas: memory erasure  
mark: reflection manipulation
> 
> it's not publicly known that exo are guardians; most of them are famous celebrities who hide in plain sight. taemin is a celebrity and a socialite, who is one of jongin's good friends; he didn't know about the guardian thing until he started having visions. the nct members are part of the nctu—a tactical unit that lowkey has spy/assassin energy. the nct subunits are different operational units. wayv are from an alternate universe and are contract killers. (if they're not out to kill you, they're really nice though.) some of the wayv members (like sicheng/winwin) have a counterpart within the current world, and are part of the nctu. lucas and ten don't, though, which is why there's only one of them :)
> 
> thank you in advance for any and all feedback!
> 
> [twitter](http://twitter.com/eggboyksoo)  
[cc](http://curiouscat.me/eggboyksoo)


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